Tesla Beats BMW As Top Luxury Brand; Scores Second in Brand Recognition

Tesla scores second for brand sustainability perceptions

Kelley Blue Book

Tesla ranks second as the brand with the highest sustainability perception. Brand Finance, an independent branding and consultation agency, released the Sustainability Perceptions Index, which uses several factors to determine the "value of sustainability perceptions to the world's leading brands."

It's hard to imagine a more sustainable brand than Tesla. The mission statement includes the verbiage: accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. This company made electric vehicles a viable form of transportation and has produced more energy than it used. But it may be Tesla's communication or lack thereof, that cost it first place.

Tesla May be too Humble

The report states, "Despite having sustainability as central to its brand, Tesla's communication of its sustainability initiatives is relatively limited considering the impact that it has. This is potentially due to a worry that the brand is too defined by sustainability. However, Brand Finance's research suggests that this worry is unwarranted, and in fact, having a strong sustainability perception will only increase consumer choice, particularly in the luxury auto sector."

To confuse readers further, Brand Finance gave the top ranking to Amazon. The report ironically states: "This may come as a surprise to some." Brand Finance explains that despite the "regular criticism about issues as diverse as labor conditions, emissions associated with its supply chains, and the polluting effects of packaging," there is a perception of sustainability. The report reads, "Regardless of Amazon's track record, it is clear that consumers worldwide have confidence that Amazon is minimizing its negative impacts, or at least is committed enough for them to continue to use its services."

Luxury Car Brands Must be Environmentally Friendly

Tesla recently ousted BMW as the top-selling luxury brand. Brand Finance's report found that consumers are putting a lot of importance on sustainability in luxury automobiles. Volvo discovered the same trend when it announced that it would phase out the production of ICE vehicles. Volvo worked with The Future Laboratory to author a report called The Rise of the Conscious Design.

The report underscored the importance of Volvo, and effectively the entire auto industry, to be more sustainable. The report pointed out, "Once focused specifically on environmental factors, consumers are rapidly developing a more holistic understanding of sustainability and ethics… The rise of conscious design stems from a pressing need to ensure that future products across categories are ethical, sustainable and regenerative."

Tesla Should Advertise

Tesla has not spent a dime on traditional advertising; instead, it relies on word-of-mouth and puts so much faith in its product that it made owners practically spokespeople. Although Tesla appears to have done some product placement in the past, such as the Model Y that was offered on the Price is Right. However, more advertising may be necessary now that the rest of the automotive world has realized electric vehicles are here to stay and consumers are demanding the product.

The average consumer must learn about Tesla's incredible safety record and cutting-edge technology. You can bet every other brand will be buying ads to promote "new features" that Tesla has already done or is significantly more advanced than the competition. There is no reason why Tesla shouldn't be the top brand globally for sustainability other than an uninformed perception, and that must change.

You Can Now Track Tesla’s Robotaxi Deployment

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Thanks to Tesla Yoda on X, we have found out that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet is registered on the Texas Department of Transportation’s public-facing Automated Vehicle Deployment website. This makes the fleet’s movements publicly viewable and trackable, and marks a first for Tesla.

This isn’t just any old FSD test - this is the first officially acknowledged, government-tracked, and sanctioned deployment of a Tesla Model Y operating as a ride-share vehicle. But that’s not all - Texas DOT’s tracker notes that the Tesla does not have a safety driver.

View on the Map

Visitors to the Texas DOT website can filter for “Tesla”, and see, currently, a single active vehicle operating in the Austin Metro area. According to the state’s official data, here’s what we know:

Company: Tesla

Description: Ride-share service

Status in Texas: Testing

Safety Driver: No

The final point is definitely the most significant here. While Tesla has been testing FSD with safety drivers for some time in Austin and LA for employee-only testing, this is the first time that a vehicle has been officially registered and deployed on public roads without a human behind the wheel for safety. 

The fact that there is no safety driver officially shifts the liability from the occupant of the driver’s seat to Tesla, for the first time in a public setting. That’s already pretty significant - we previously dove into how Tesla plans to insure its own vehicles, and potentially owner vehicles in the Robotaxi fleets. 

The status currently lists Tesla as “Testing,” confirming that the service isn’t available to the public, but this is expected to change in the coming weeks.

This testing phase is likely part of a short but crucial period that lets Tesla capture data on the safety levels of its current iteration of Unsupervised FSD without a driver supervising. Tesla already stated that they’d be avoiding difficult areas, so this testing can also expose additional areas Tesla may want to avoid, such as school zones or blind driveways.

Tesla will need to prove, both internally and externally, that FSD Unsupervised has the necessary performance to safely navigate the streets without any incidents.

Regulatory Milestone

For years, the concept of a Tesla Robotaxi has been a future promise. Now, it's a present-day reality, albeit in a testing capacity.

Having an official government body list a Tesla as an active, driverless vehicle shows that they’ve been able to clear regulatory hurdles, which Tesla has often pointed to as the issue. It demonstrates a level of confidence from both Tesla and Texas regulators in the system's capabilities.

While it's just a single vehicle for today, we’ll likely see this list slowly expand over time. Alongside being able to track Robotaxi incidents at the City of Austin’s website, we’ll be able to closely watch Tesla’s progress with its first Robotaxi deployments.

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Tesla FSD in Europe: June Update

Not a Tesla App

The road to bringing FSD to Europe has been a long and complex one and filled with regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles. Elon Musk, as well as other members of Tesla’s AI team, have previously voiced their grievances with the regulatory approval process on X.

However, it appears that there is finally some progress in getting things moving with recent changes to upcoming autonomy regulations, but the process still seems slow.

Waiting on the Dutch

Elon commented on X recently, stating that Tesla is waiting for approval from Dutch authorities and then the EU to start rolling out FSD in Europe. Tesla is focusing on acquiring approvals from the Dutch transportation authority, which will provide them with the platform they need to gain broader acceptance in Europe. Outside of the Netherlands, Tesla is also conducting testing in Norway, which provides a couple of avenues for them to obtain national-level approval.

The frustration has been ongoing, with multiple committee meetings bringing up autonomy regulation but always pulling back at the last second before approving anything. The last meeting on Regulation 157, which governs Automated Lane Keeping Systems, concluded with authorities from the UK and Spain requesting additional time to analyze the data before reaching a conclusion.

Tesla, as well as Elon, have motioned several times for owners to reach out to their elected representatives to move the process forward, as it seems that Tesla’s own efforts are being stymied. 

This can seem odd, especially since Tesla has previously demoed FSD working exceptionally smoothly on European roads - and just did it again in Rome when they shared the video below on X.

FSD Supervised testing in Rome, Italy

Pending regulatory approval pic.twitter.com/TXh3uQIfrx

— Tesla Europe & Middle East (@teslaeurope) June 12, 2025

DCAS Phase 3

While the approval process has been slow, Kees Roelandschap pointed out that there may be a different regulatory step that could allow FSD to gain a foothold in Europe.

According to Kees, the European Commission is now taking a new approach to approving ADAS systems under the new DCAS Phase 3 regulations. The Commission is now seeking data from systems currently operational in the United States that can perform System-Initiated Maneuvers and don’t require hands-on intervention for every request.

This is key because those are two of the core functionalities that make FSD so usable, and it also means that there may not be a need to wait years for proper regulations to be written from scratch. Now, the Commission will be looking at real-world data based on existing, deployed technology, which could speed up the process immensely.

What This Means

This new, data-driven regulatory approach could be the path for Tesla to reach its previous target of September for European FSD. While the cogs of bureaucracy are ever slow, sometimes all it takes is a little data to have them turn a bit faster in this case.

Alongside specific countries granting approval for limited field testing with employees, there is some light at the end of the tunnel for FSD in Europe, and hopes are that a release will occur by the end of 2025. With Europe now looking to North America for how FSD is performing, Tesla’s Robotaxi results could also play a role.

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